


Sanctuary

by B_Radley



Series: Rise and Fight Again [19]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Loss, Love, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 07:56:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8481658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: After the events on Darga IV and Corellia, a huntress, a spy, and a warrior remember their losses.Takes place immediately after the events of A Bud Shall Yield





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Bud Shall Yield No Meal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253691) by [B_Radley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley). 



**CSF Draq'stone  
Open Space**

**Empire Day 5 -3 days**

Ahsoka Tano starts awake. She shakes her head at the whispers of the past intruding on her sleep. She eases the bacta splint covering her entire left arm to a better position; rising from her pallet on the deck of the cabin. The former captain's cabin when this memory was a battered Republic light frigate.

For an instant, she can hear the laughter of two young people. One, a talented ship's captain, with her own demons. The other, a younger avatar of the man sleeping peacefully in the bed. Two young people grasping the light in the overwhelming darkness.

She smiles. She doesn't begrudge them their time. She is glad that the man who now lays in this bed, healing from an ordeal that would have killed lesser men, had that outlet during that time. As if he can read her thoughts, the hunter stirs. He opens his eyes and focuses on her. He closes them again.

For a brief second she mourns that his eyes are covered again. Eyes that look at her and through her during the increasingly rare times they can look spend in each other’s light.

He smiles; those eyes still closed. "I can hear you, Runt. You don't have to think so loudly."

She looks at the mirror and fights to banish the pained expression from her face. She smiles and turns back to him.

"Why are you sleeping on the deck, _cyar'ika_? You are always welcome in my bed." He smirks. "No matter who is in it."

The eyeroll cuts through him. "I know that you are alright. You're making smartass, suggestive comments."

"Only because you hadn't thought of it first."

He motions for her to sit on the bed. He smirks at her sleeping attire. "I recognize those shorts. So are we at the point where we are wearing each other's underwear?"

"I would be happy to loan you some of mine, but I don't have any extra with me," comes the instant rejoinder.

"That's alright. I don't think that I would look good in them. Not as good as you look in mine." He touches her shoulder. "I see you found my stash of GAR regimental exercise shirts. I thought I had them hidden pretty well."

"I know you, Bait. You hide everything under the deck plates. Must be a Corellian thing."

She sees him look at the shirt. A dark green garment. On the front is a very large cartoon figure in Phase I armor. A bright jewel is visible on his bucket, as are drops of blood under the visor. In one hand, a DC-15S is firing at an unseen enemy. The large clone's feet are standing astride a shattered battledroid. Other clone figures are seen as running away or hiding from the oversized clone. It is the left hand of the figure that makes him smile with memory. The left hand grasps the left wrist of a figure out of the scene. A skinny orange wrist with a comm unit on it. The large clone is shouting in to it. The caption bubble reads in stylized Aurabesh - "Embrace the Suck, Assholes!"

The bearer of the skinny orange wrist - not so skinny any more and encased in that bacta cast, smiles at him.

"Real classy shirt, _Baa'je'ie_ ," the bearer says. He nods, a serious expression on his face. Her Smirk softens.

"The Republic Senate and GAR High Command, in their collective wisdom, decided that the Z'ambique campaign didn't warrant a campaign ribbon or battle honors, since they decided to abandon it,” he says quietly. “Tang, Gregor, and Drop came to me to try to do something for those who fought and died there. I let them run with it. Only those survivors qualified for the unofficial campaign 'medal." His expression grows thunderous. "I authorized paying for it from discretionary funds. The GAR auditors came after me. I took responsibility. Windu, of all people came to my rescue. He basically told the auditors to pound sand."

Ahsoka's expression is one of amazement.

"Don't worry, his reputation is intact. He made me refund the money out of my subsistence stipend as a General."

"Bait, if I had known, I would've paid my share."

"I know, Runt." He brightens. "That one fits you. Probably a lot better than the one that I saved for you."

"Yeah. There's a little more up top now."

"A little," he says with a straight face.

"I don't see you complaining very much when you're laying your head there. Among other things."

He doesn't respond, but looks down. She touches his cheek. "Hey. I can't take this with me. Can I leave it here?" She looks down herself. "You can wear it when I am not here, since," she Smirks, "you can't wear my underwear."

He laughs and nods. He grimaces in pain. He waves her away as her face grows concerned. "I'm okay. I was just thinking that maybe I'll get a couple of my dress shirts back."

"Nope. They have no identifying marks and make great sleepwear when I actually wear them." She looks sideways at him. "Very rarely" she says, a catch in her voice.

He rolls his eyes toward the overhead. "Let's not talk about that, Bait. Certain parts are still sore where Fett dropkicked them a couple of times."

"Remind me never to show mercy to little asshole bounty hunters again."

"No argument, there, Ahsoka."

A concerned look flows to her features. "What?" he asks.

"You must be really hurting," she replies.

"Yeah, but I'll live. Why?"

"You haven't even made a joke about me kissing them and making them better."

Their laughter blends together in harmony. He is about to start coughing when her lips and tongue caress his; stifling the cough.

"See," he says. "You underestimate the power of your kisses, Master."

Her smile grows as wistful as his as the memories of those times and places overwhelm them both.

He looks at her. "So you changed the subject. How come you aren't in the bed with me?"

She looks down. "I didn't want to hurt you any further. You were nearly dead when we got you." She smiles. "Plus, all this time, I haven't been in the great Bryne Covenant's bedroom. Hadn't been asked."

"Not actually mine, Runt."

Her eyebrow marking raises. "Really? Then whose is it?"

"Well, its basically Dani's. It is the owner's suite."

"This is Dani's ship? I thought it was Corellia's."

"Nope. It is a private vessel. Draq' gave it to Dani. It's designation is CSF for Corellian Security Facility. If it was a government vessel, it would be CSV for....."

She holds up her hand, a long-familiar stubborn expression on her face. "I get it, I get it, Clan-master. What does it mean?"

"It means even though it's Dani's, it has the protection of the Corellian government, during its use for CorSec."

"No, I meant why did the Dragon give it to Dani?"

"To celebrate her promotion to Chief Inspector."

"Not that Dani doesn't deserve it, but isn't an entire _Consular_ class a pretty....ostentatious reward for an officer?"

He smiles, knowingly. "Man gets to give things to his daughter, if he can."

The reveal is not as surprising as he thought.

Her smile is just as knowing. His eyes narrow. "Okay, wise Jedi Master. How did you know?"

"What, you didn't know it from the first time you saw them together?"

"What do you mean?" he asks incredulously. "You didn't feel it in their Force signature?" she asks, an innocent expression on her face.

He is silent as he contemplates this. He looks at her; sees her face quivering. "You‘re so full of shit, Tano. She told you, didn't she?" he says accusingly.

"Yep. Had you there for a second. Although I did feel something when I met them together."

"Yeah, I know. Its something we don't know much about. Or at least remember."

Ahsoka nods. "The love for a child by her parent."

"Yeah."

"So when did she tell you, _cyar'ika_?

She looks him in the eye. "You’re not the only one that has been 'comforted' by her."

He smiles and nods. "I thought so." He reaches over and kisses her on her nose.

She smiles. "So if this is Dani's room, why are your possessions and clothes in here, as well?"

He sobers. "We share the room, unless one of us needs it. Sometimes..." He gathers himself. He looks at her, his green eyes looking through her. "Sometimes before I knew you were alive, the nightmares would be too much. I would go out to the lounge and lay down, to let her sleep. So that she didn't think she had to bear all of that through the resonance.

"I persuaded Draq' to find buy this ship. Some of my reasons were selfish and personal. This was where I became an adult. Where I had brothers. Where I felt like I was doing something that meant something."

She kisses him gently and pulls herself over to his left side. She lays her head on that side, careful of the healing knife wound in his shoulder and lung. She listens to his heart rate. It is steady.

"But the other was for Dani. I wanted her to have something that was hers. A sanctuary. I felt like for the care that she has given everyone, for what she lost herself, she deserved something."

"Draq' and I found the ship. Some rich fool was using her as a party barge; had remodeled her. Draq' had no problem taking it - he was a spice lorf.  We took her and gave her back some of her pride - the weapons, the fighter pod. We kept some of the luxury mods. For Dani."

He pauses to catch his breath. Ahsoka sits up to give him time. She runs her fingers through his now-close cropped hair; runs her fingers over the scar just visible through the fuzz over his left ear. A souvenir of a desperate duel on Christophsis with a powerful Geonosian.

"Dani saved me."

The simple statement was powerful.

Ahsoka holds her breath as she listens.

"She found me at Maz's. Destroying what was left of my life after....."

He shakes his head. _Not_ _yet_.

"She found me and dragged me to Draq'. He looked at me and handed me the legend that Baldrick had designed for me at the beginning of the Clone Wars. He asked me if I was worth saving."

He smiles. "Dani answered for me. She said, _Yes, Dragon. He is. He‘s your nephew. The son of your beloved brother-in-law. The blood of your beloved wife. I_ will make sure he is worth it."

He laughs gently. "The Dragon had nothing to say to that. He just nodded and told her I was her responsibility. For her to make something of me again."

"To find the good and do it."

Ahsoka's eyes are bright as she gazes at him. "We got this ship." He laughs. "It mostly stays in the dock at the Cantonment, but it is here for us as a sanctuary."

"I moved my things in to one of the other cabins. She took one look and immediately made me move them in here with her."

"I slept in her arms for the first six months or so. Not necessarily always like you think, but sometimes. We would talk. Not necessarily about what had happened to either of us, just about our general experiences."

"She saved me," he repeats.

"We saved each other," a new voice says.

A light musical voice.

Ahsoka and Covenant look at each other. _Two so-called Force-sensitives and she sneaks up on us._

Dani Faygan stands in the cabin, the door closing behind her. She too, is clad in her sleeping clothes. Her feet are bare, as are her legs.

She walks over to the bed. She reaches down and kisses Covenant. Ahsoka looks down, to give them the moment.

Dani breaks away and lifts the huntress' chin and repeats the kiss on her.

She climbs into the bed on the other side of Ahsoka and lays next to them, her head supported by her palm. She looks at both of them.

"Yes, he was my 'project' if you will. But I needed to do it. I needed to make sure that the person that meant the most to her was whole and alive."

The elder huntress' presence is palpable in the room.

Covenant's eyes well. He can see that Ahsoka's are closed. He finds his voice. "Dani, I...."

She reaches over Ahsoka and places her fingers on his lips. "Shhh, Padawan," she says, "I know."

With the same hand, she pulls Ahsoka down so that she is able to look both of them in the face.

"I didn't complete the saving of him, Ahsoka Tano. Just so you know. You did that. The only thing that could save him, barring one thing, showed up and punched him in the face."

The three of them share a laugh.

As their laughter stills, Ahsoka can look at neither of them. Dani sits up on the bed. She pulls Ahsoka into an embrace, then turns her to face where Covenant lays. "You two are the universe to me, along with a few others. But you two are the only ones I know that shared something with her. Who made her last few years a joy -whether it was as her Padawan or as a child of the hunt. You both gave her joy and pride."

Her own eyes are dark with emotion and glisten in the low light of the ship's night. "Tal. I know that you left each other with angry words. Ti regretted the decision that the Council made. She never told me her vote, but it ate at her for the rest of my time with her."

"I don't care how she voted," Ahsoka says. "I have the same feelings for Master Plo. He and Obi-wan were the only ones who expressed regret that I got to talk to." She collects herself. "I had and have the utmost respect for what Ti means to all of us. This is not the time to rehash the mistakes of the past. Force knows I have made my own. It's over. She should rest. You both should rest easy."

The three of them are silent. Croft speaks. "Ahsoka, you know where you found your shirt?"

"Yeah, _ie'ar_." She doesn't notice Dani start at the intimate, formal tense. "Can you bring the box  here, _cyar'ika_?

The young huntress gets up and walks to the closet.

"Have you said the word, Bryne Covenant?" Dani asks pointedly. "What word?" he asks.

"The only word that matters."

"No, we, haven't, Dani," Ahsoka answers as she returns with a small box. "We don't have to."

Dani looks at them both. After a while, she breaks the gaze. Ahsoka hands the box to Covenant. He opens it and pulls out a bright object.

A headdress. Filled with many teeth. The headdress of an Elder of the Hunt. He kisses it and passes it to Ahsoka. She closes her eyes. He sees her lips moving in a long-remembered benediction. She kisses it and passes it to Dani.

Dani takes it gingerly. She kisses it herself. Tears freely spill from her eyes.

"What would you do with it on Shili, Ahsoka?"

"It would be the next of kin's choice, Dani. To leave it with the loved one, or to keep it as a memory. Either is appropriate. I will say," she looks at Dani, "rites on Shili are public. I don't think it would be safe for us to remember her on Shili."

Dani smiles through her tears. "I am sure that the clones and the Kaminoans dumped her over the side of the city. Her physical presence is gone and I can't very well go there and dump it to be with her."

Bryne says, "Dani, take comfort that the Togruta believe that the physical body should return to the ground, to be used again. It is a part of a kind of reincarnation cycle for the Pantheon."

Ahsoka looks at them both. "Mourning is for the living. How do you mourn your dead on Zeltros, Dani?"

"We don't. We celebrate their lives, much as we do everything else. Close friends get together. We drink, we eat, we remember and," she gives a gentle smile, filled with joy and a slight bit of mischief, "we do what we always do."

"We celebrate life to its fullest." Ahsoka smiles as she notices that both she and Covenant are mouthing the words as Dani says them.

She looks at Covenant. He nods. "Daaineran Faygan, when Gimpy here is healed," she smiles, "he and I will help you celebrate Ti's life."

Dani can only nod. "I know this makes you uncomfortable to hear this, Bryne, but she was a passionate woman."

"I know. It was mostly a lot of teasing each other." He smiles ruefully. "I returned late to our quarters on a few occasions when someone else was leaving."

"Oh, yeah, Bait? Where were you coming from so late?" Ahsoka asks. He assumes an innocent expression.

"Studying."

Their laughter cuts through the night, until Covenant winces and coughs again. Ahsoka and Dani both look at him with concern and place their hands on his chest.

He shakes his head at Ahsoka. "Don't do, it, sweetie. Let Dani. She can reflect my own and amplify it. I don't want Fulcrum to wind up like me. Kind of a half-assed Force-user."

"Already a half-assed Jedi,” she says.

He calms. The pain in his chest eases. Dani's body wavers. Ahsoka holds her up. "I thought you said she could do this."

Dani pushes her away. "I'm alright. Just tired. We could all use some sleep. We have a few hours until morning."

"Let's sleep."

At that moment, a green light flashes on Ahsoka's arm splint. The young huntress gives an exaggerated sigh of relief. She removes the splint and flexes her arm. Covenant and Dani can see the tiny puckered scar on her upper arm where the bone had poked through. A fading bruise on her forearm is the only indicator that these bones had been snapped as well in the crash that demolished her Aethersprite. She throws the splint across the room.

Ahsoka turns on her side and pillows her head on Covenant's uninjured chest. Dani scoots up behind the huntress and puts her arm around her middle. She takes Covenant's arm in a light grip above the bacta screen.

Their breathing becomes uniform and regular.

The headdress of a lover, a mother, a teacher, and a fellow huntress finds itself held in Covenant's right hand in a loose grip.

As he sleeps, he feels a smile through the bond that was never broken. A bond that was renewed when he lay in the mists of the Force.

 

 


End file.
